Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

" D o you have to goad them like that?" Rosa asked as they entered the servant's passages, heading for the kitchen.

"Those boys are so full of piss and importance that anything I say is going to provoke them."

"You're talking about the man I love there, so watch it," Rosa warned. She pushed open the door into the kitchen. Taking a calico shopping bag from the pantry, she started to fill it with tea, sugar, a loaf of fresh bread, and a bottle of milk.

"The man you love…he must have one of those personalities that grows on you after a while," Eldon commented. He took the bag from her, and she opened the back door.

"A personality a bit like yours then?" she quipped. The cold winter air bit into her, and she huddled in her jacket. She'd thought that becoming Gwaed Teulu meant she didn't have to feel the cold anymore, but she was wrong. It was exactly like being human.

"Did you ever stop to think to maybe give Bal a break? He's been through a lot in the last few weeks. You can't blame him and Saul for your daddy going off to make a new family."

"That's too soap opera for my taste," Eldon replied. The frosted ground crunched under their boots as they crossed through the grounds. "I never heard of the Wylts having their own cottage before."

"They usually live in it until they retire, and Eli sets them up wherever they want to be," Rosa said, taking the heavy key from her pocket. Eldon paused as she opened the gate, his eyes scanning the hedges and garden.

"What's wrong?" Rosa asked.

"Nothing… It's just that I've never seen Bleddyn use this kind of warding before. He must've been really worried about you."

"You have your issues with him. I'm not going to pry into that, but he's been like a father to me. I treated him pretty badly when I didn't know what was going on here at Gwaed Lyn. He never took it personally. He saved my life. I know you don't like it, for whatever reason, but he did give me a choice, right up until the end."

Eldon's golden eyes glowed softly in the darkness. "Lead on, Rosa Wylt, otherwise, we'll freeze to death while you lecture me."

Rosa opened the front door, switching on lamps as she went. "You're going to have to excuse the mess," she said sheepishly when they went into the lounge room. Her research on the Wylts was still spread in small piles on couches and coffee tables.

"What is all this?" Eldon asked, picking up a bundle of letters.

"Well, it's us." Rosa waved her hands around the room. "The history of the Wylts. I might have gone a tad crazy trying to figure out why the Wylts and the Vanes were so caught up together. This might interest you. Eli gave it to me. It's about the Vanes and how he adopted Saul, Bal, and Lily." She handed him the book, and he studied it, turning it over with his long fingers.

"As for the rest, I'll clean it up for you and…"

"No, leave it," he said, placing the book down on a spare seat. "I was out of the world for too many years. I would like to go through and read it myself." Rosa took him upstairs and showed him where the bathroom was.

"Who is the artist?" Eldon asked, looking into the main bedroom. Rosa swore. She had changed the sheets that day, but she had forgotten about the portrait still hanging over the fireplace.

"Shit, I will just grab that…" Rosa mumbled. She pushed passed him to take it down.

"Young Balthasar has quite the hand," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"You have no idea," Rosa said and quickly slammed her mouth shut.

Eldon chuckled, "To be young and in love again. Venus at the Mirror ?"

"Personal joke," Rosa muttered, her face turning red.

"Very personal, I imagine," he teased. "I'm sorry for provoking him. It's not my intention to cause any problems between you two."

"It's nothing. I think we are all pretty tense right now. Eli and the boys have a lot of problems with the Gwaed Gam. The treaty was a disaster and a lot of people died."

"Things are about to get far worse between us and the fae than ever before," Eldon said. "I should have more answers in the next few days. Spying on the Aos Si is a perilous business at best, but I have to know if my visions were right. I need to get you trained, Rhosyn. You can't rely on your Balthasar to protect you all the time. We'll start in the morning."

"Get some sleep, Blaise," Rosa said with a playful punch to his shoulder. "I'm a shitty student."

It was late enough that Rosa managed to get the portrait inside and upstairs to the attic without anyone seeing her. Her muscles pulsed with strength, urging her to run as fast as she could. She hadn't had the chance to test any of her new abilities, and she didn't feel like explaining to Eli why she had trashed half the mansion by trying to run without knowing how to stop.

Balthasar was sitting at one of his many tables, writing notes and muttering under his breath. She didn't interrupt him, content to watch him with his suit jacket tossed over the back of a chair and the sleeves of his pale blue shirt pushed up to his elbows to show off his scarred forearms. She didn't think she would ever get tired of looking at him.

You should have put some nicer underwear on , Rosa thought. She was dressed in the jeans and button up shirt that she had carelessly thrown on that morning.

"Are you coming in, Rosa, or are you just going to lurk in the doorway all night," Balthasar asked as he looked up. "I take it Eldon didn't appreciate the picture?"

"It's not that. He said you had a good hand," she said propping the picture up on an empty easel. "But it's my painting, and I wanted it with me."

"Moving in, are you?"

"You don't want me to? That's fine. I'll crash in my old room back in the cottage. I'm sure my infamous wizard cousin won't mind." She turned to reach for the door, but Balthasar was already there, foot propped firmly against it.

"I don't feel inclined to let you go anywhere. I was merely asking if you were moving in, no sarcasm intended," he said, the lines of his mouth deepening into a grin.

"Oh." Rosa looked at her feet. "It's kind of hard to tell when you are wearing your serious face."

"My apologies. I've been thinking about what Eldon said about the magic," Balthasar said as he steered her gently back towards his worktable. "I didn't want to admit it to him, but I have felt different since our adventures into Faerie. I thought it might have been a side effect, but I wasn't too concerned about it because I was so worried about you."

"What is all of this?" Rosa asked, looking at the notebooks and pieces of paper he'd been studying when she came in.

"These are the notes I took when Eli was teaching me some of the basics of magic. I wasn't much of a student, preferring to learn about my strength and speed for battles."

"Such a boy," she teased, flicking the tip of his shirt collar.

"So kind of you to finally notice. After our chat tonight, I thought I would try out some of my old skills."

"And?"

Balthasar smiled and held out his hand, clenched in a fist. Very slowly, he uncurled his fingers as a perfect red rose bloomed in his palm. He offered it to her. "A rose for my rose."

"It's lovely." She beamed as she lifted it to smell. "Do you think I will be able to do magic?"

"Eldon seems to think so, and the rest of the family got some abilities when they turned." Balthasar rested his hand easily on her waist. "I can see where a lot of your Wylt-ness comes from."

"By Wylt-ness, do you mean sexy good looks, mysterious personality…"

"Huge ego? Smart mouth?" Balthasar offered.

"I was starting to think you had an appreciation for my mouth," Rosa pouted dramatically.

Balthasar pulled her between his legs, her chest pressing into his. "You're going to have to refresh my memory." The kiss was static, like tasting hot lightning that shot through her lips down to her toes. Her new senses went into overdrive as his warm hands slid up the back of her shirt to brush over her spine.

"You'd better be careful what you try to start, Bal. I'm not exactly trained in my new abilities. I wouldn't want to destroy any of your paintings by accident," Rosa warned breathlessly.

Balthasar leaned down and bit the curve of her neck. "I can always paint more." The blue fabric in her hands ripped, tearing in half like tissue paper, exposing scarred muscle. The grin on Balthasar's face grew savage. "Don't hold back."

Hours later, sitting in front of the glowing embers of his fire, Eldon Blaise searched for answers. The fragile fabric of the spell holding the Aos Si was tearing apart, and there was no way to stop the war that the Autumn Queen would provoke. She would not relinquish her control easily.

Another war . Eldon pinched the bridge of his nose. This place, so different in his memory, still felt the same as it always had. The forest, the mansion, and the lake were pulsing with a magic that none but Eli and himself could feel. The ghosts whispered out to him as he got to his feet and opened the back door of the house.

"You're up late, athair ."

Eli sat on a garden seat in his true Unseelie form. His curling black hair hung to his chest, and his suit was put away in favor of a dark green shirt, black pants, and high black boots. His emerald eyes glowed as he got to his feet. Eldon had been expecting this man. Bleddyn, the wolf of the Unseelie, not the banker that had greeted him.

"Nice to see you looking like your old self again." Eldon walked out onto the little path, pausing as Bleddyn got to his feet.

"Walk with me, Merlin," he said in a tone that brokered no argument. "There is much I want to learn about your adventures."

"Lucky we both have eternity then," Eldon joked as they walked from the Wylt gardens and out into the forest.